Self Fulfilling Prophecy

What is a Self Fulfilling
Prophecy?
Any positive or negative
expectations about circumstances, events, or people that can affect how
a person behaves toward them in a manner that causes those expectations
to be fulfilled.

An individual who expects
others
to be disloyal and shirkers, will likely treat them in a way that will
elicit the expected response which is taken to validate the original
premise.

Positive and Negative Responses
The expectations people have about how
others will behave plays a major
role in how people with interact with them. What you believe will
become true cause you to act subconsciously and
consciously in ways that will cause the event to happen.
Self-fulfilling
prophecies are powerful, and real.

The Group Effect of
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Self-fulfilling prophecies work with
groups, too, proving that two
is better than one! It's called the synergistic accumulative effect,
and it simply means that two or more people's expectations are more
powerful than one person's. This can be seen in the emotional tides
that occur in sporting events and the effect of fans rooting for their
team.

Self-fulfilling prophecies in families
are particularly common as parents establish plans for their children's
careers, attending their alma matter, sports participation, approval of
boy and girl friends, religion, and political affiliation.

Psychologist Robert Rosenthal
UC Riverside’s Robert Rosenthal launched
a field of study that focuses
on how body movement and tone of voice can influence jury trials,
student performance and patient outcomes. His research into
experimenter bias and other types of self-fulfilling prophecy led to an
increased emphasis on the importance of double-blind studies in the
social and biomedical sciences.

50 years of studies by social and behavioral
researchers which
showed that these researchers too often obtained the results they
expected because of their own unrecognized self-fulfilling prophecies.

“That finding led to experiments
showing that teachers who had been
led to expect superior intellectual performance from their students
obtained superior intellectual performance from their students. Other
studies found that, in business and in military situations, when
supervisors were led to expect superior performance they obtained
superior performance,” he said. “As with teachers, researchers and
clever horses, self-fulfilling prophecies were at work.”

Studies of self-fulfilling
prophecies led to research on nonverbal
communication which found that a physician’s tone of voice in talking
with or about patients could predict their success in referring
alcoholic patients to treatment and, in the case of surgeons, could
predict their likelihood of being sued by their patients. In
courtrooms, judges’ beliefs about the guilt of defendants was
associated with nonverbal cues to the jury that markedly affected the
verdicts rendered by California juries.

Rosenthal taught at Harvard
University for 37 years before joining the
UCR faculty in 1999.
He earned a B.A. and Ph.D. in psychology from
UCLA, has won numerous awards for his research, and is a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science and
the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Self-fulfilling
prophecy a principle that states that a
belief in or the expectation of a particular resolution is a factor
that contributes to its fulfillment.

Overcoming
the self-fulfilling prophecy of social rejection It is an
unfortunate fact that, if you expect someone you meet for the first
time not to like you, you tend to behave more distantly towards them.
This increases the chances that they won’t like you. The reverse is
also true: if you assume that you will be liked, you tend to behave
more warmly and thus increase your chances of being liked.

PDF Managing
Student-Athletes' Mental Health IssuesA student-athlete’s “mental
health” might be viewed as secondary to physical health; however, it is
every bit as important. It makes little sense to try to separate the
“mind” and “body.” One affects the other. Medical problems often have
psychological or emotional consequences. Psychological problems (e.g.,
eating disorders,
substance-related problems, etc.) typically have medical consequences.
Some signs and symptoms of possible mental health problems.

Integrating
sport psychology and sports counseling Up to 15 percent of American
athletes suffer from psychosocial problems. Clinicians are searching
for solutions to problems - sport psychologists concentrate on
performance enhancement
and mental skills training. Sports counselors focus on
the athlete's psychoemotional difficulties and development as an
individual.

Although the disciplines of sport psychology and sports counseling have
traditionally been distinct, the integration of these areas is
necessary for the effective integrated sport psychology/sports
counseling
emphasis.

Importance of Youth Involvement inSports
Participation in competitive team sports at an early
age gives children an opportunity to understand the healthy aspects of
competition in a friendly environment.

PDFSTAY
AND PLAY The rules in
non-competitive
sport can be changed to suit the participants and environment to ensure
everyone can 'play' and that no one is excluded.

References:

Coaches'
Corner: Making Youth Sports Safe and Enjoyable Many youngsters enter organized sports
programs before age 6, and ... playing techniques can only be learned
in a supervised sports environment, ... Competitive sports may increase
the potential for psychological harm to certain youngsters.

The following internet
links have been
gleaned from personal communications
and combined with
information from
public institutions, plus athletic
organizations/ associations that have a web presence
with concerning team
and
individual sports
programs: